In the commercial processing of tobacco a large amount of tobacco fines, i.e., very small particles of tobacco are created. Various means have been disclosed for reuse of these tobacco fines as in a reconstituted tobacco sheet.
However, the fines are often found in combination with sand. The tobacco fines cannot be directly processed to a reconstituted sheet because of the sand present and the sand must, therefore, be removed before further processing. Similar problems arise with other botanical materials.